


i know this, i know i don't know

by FoxGlade



Category: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e045 A Story About Them, Existential Dread is the Moonlite All-Nite Diner's third most popular milkshake flavour, Gen, a mix of night vale and r&g surrealism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1733690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxGlade/pseuds/FoxGlade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a story about them, says the man on the radio,” says the man on the radio. “And you are confused, because you are certain you’ve heard this story before.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know this, i know i don't know

**Author's Note:**

> ngl, i've been wanting to write a crossover between r&g and night vale since i read [unsuborsuper's amazing crossover](http://unsuborsuper.tumblr.com/post/56381418199/i-did-it-i-wrote-the-r-g-in-night-vale-fic). so when i first listened to episode 45 and instantly pictured rosie and guil as Them, i knew i had to write it.
> 
> title from Remember Us by Gabriel Royal (the Weather for the live show Condos). some dialogue taken from episodes 13 and 45. i'm going to go ahead and blame this on shena, despite them having literally no clue that i'm writing this.

“This is a story about them, says the man on the radio,” says the man on the radio. “And you are confused, because you are certain you’ve heard this story before.”

 

 

They’re in a car, on a street, in front of a house. They’re supposed to be watching the house, but Rosencrantz had folded half an hour in and pulled out the crossword from this morning’s Daily Journal. He’s glad it’s not the Imagination Edition today. He’s terrible at the crosswords in those ones.

“Is the radio narrating our actions?” Guildenstern asks suddenly. He’s been diligently watching for hours. That’s why they’re partnered together. Probably.

“The man who is not tall glances down at the radio; not annoyed, or concerned, or afraid. He just looks at it,” the voice says. Rosencrantz looks away from the radio and shrugs.

“Seems likely,” he says. “Possibly he could be predicting our actions aloud a few moments before we perform them. Or maybe he’s controlling us.”

Guildenstern hums and continues looking at the house. Rosencrantz studies the next clue on his crossword, then makes a pleased noise and writes the word “chance” for the fifth time. He moves to 3 Down and tilts his head.

“Do you know a six letter word, ending in ‘e’, that’s a synonym for feasibility?” he asks Guildenstern idly, not expecting an answer. Guildenstern doesn’t answer him a lot of the time. Sometimes he feels like this is not how it should be, but the feeling usually passes quickly.

“There he is,” Guildenstern says instead. Rosencrantz looks at the house and yes, there is a man exiting the house. He looks familiar. But Night Vale is a small town – he’s probably seen him at the Ralph’s sometime. The man frowns at them as they get out of the car.

“What is this,” he says. He doesn’t seem surprised. He looks faintly angry, actually, but doesn’t resist when they tie a blindfold over his eyes and manoeuvre him into the backseat of the car.

“This is not a story about the man,” the man on the radio clarifies. “You don’t care about him. This is a story about them.”

“It’s nice to know that our story is about us,” Rosencrantz says. Guildenstern starts the car and pulls away from the curb. “I think that’d be a terrible fate, really. To be trapped in someone else’s story.”

“Bad things happen to main characters,” Guildenstern replies. Rosencrantz smiles, pleased that Guildenstern is answering him again.

He ignores the man on the radio describing why he is pleased and says, “Well, yes, but at least they’re real. Figuratively, I mean. They have motivations, and emotions, and flaws, and ambitions. Background characters don’t have that. They’re just characters.”

“Sometimes they have those things,” Guildenstern says. “Who are you to say they don’t?”

“Mmm m mmmmm mm mmm,” the man in the back agrees. Or disagrees. Rosencrantz can’t really tell.

They pull into the parking lot of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, a moment before the radio tells them that they pull into the parking lot of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. They come here a lot. He remembers coming here with Guildenstern after school, cramming their dusty backpacks full of textbooks and homework and assault rifles under the table and ordering milkshakes; ash mango for Guildenstern and Existential Dread flavour for Rosencrantz. They’d drink until their stomachs were bursting, then continue walking home to…

He doesn’t remember where they lived as children.

But, no, that doesn’t matter, because he and Guildenstern didn’t know each other as children, right? They met on Rosencrantz’s first day as a Secret Policeman, when they were partnered together. Or… is that right?

He feels a tug of doubt, and looks up.

“Hey,” he says. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Guildenstern is looking at him with a familiar expression; a sort of annoyed, yet fond, patient kind of impatience. He wears it a lot when they’re together.

“I saw something,” he says. “For a moment; just there, for a moment…” Just for a moment, he’d thought there was…

“Let’s go inside,” Guildenstern says.

 

 

“Background characters are always sort of fragile,” Rosencrantz says in the diner. He takes a bite out of his sandwich and doesn’t feel disappointment at not getting milkshakes. The man on the radio announces that he does indeed feel disappointment at not getting milkshakes. Rosencrantz ignores him and continues, “For example: Imagine someone writes a series of books, and there is a background character in the first book who is sixteen.”

“This is hypothetical, right?” Guildenstern asks. “You haven’t actually read any books lately, have you?”

“Of course not. But, see, if in the first book he is sixteen, and then the author forgets this and writes him as thirty in the next book, his whole life has changed! Just because of a forgetful creator!”

“What’s to stop that from happening to a main character?” Guildenstern argues.

“More people would notice, if it was a main character,” Rosencrantz says. “There’d be outrage. Demands for a correction! But they don’t care about background characters. They’re less important. I don’t want to be a background character.”

Guildenstern doesn’t answer, but he does offer Rosencrantz some of his fries.

“He does this to indicate what he feels about their friendship, but cannot say,” the man on the radio helpfully explains as Rosencrantz eats a couple of the fries.

They sit in silence until Guildenstern pulls out his wallet and tucks a few bills under the salt shakers, and walk back to the car once the chewing sound stops. The man in the backseat is lying down, but Rosencrantz knows he is still awake, because his lips are moving soundlessly, repeating the same phrase over and over again.

The radio tells him that this is symbolic, but not what it is symbolic of.

 

 

Their supervisor is waiting for them outside the warehouse, eyes glinting, clothes pristine despite the overwhelming heat of the desert. The enormous building is built like a castle, with passageways and tunnels and hidden rooms everywhere. Not that Rosencrantz has ever seen anything in the building.

“A disgrace,” the supervisor says when they get out of the car, “let me tell you something.” His words are echoed on the radio that is still playing in the car.

In unison, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern point to the man in the backseat, who is now sitting up. The supervisor frowns. “Oh,” he says, and, “You realise that someone has to be to blame,” he continues, pointing threateningly at them. Neither of them blink. The supervisor sighs, then says,

“It was very simple. Become close to my nephew and, as a result, gain valuable information of his rebellious, anti-Secret Police activities. It could not have been more simple.”

Was that what their task was? To help their supervisor bring down a stubborn teenager who was protesting more against his uncle than his uncle’s profession? It made sense; after all, they’d known Hamlet since they were children, hadn’t they?

He feels a tug of doubt, and looks up.

“Hey,” he says, not urgently or with fear. He just says it. “Look at that,” he says, and points up at the distant, darkly glowing planet, hovering in the sky with hidden intent.

Guildenstern and their supervisor look, but Rosencrantz knows they see nothing, because the man on the radio tells him.

“Good,” the supervisor says after a moment. “Yes, this is very good.”

“Yes. Good,” Guildenstern repeats, and his voice is heavy now, as if suddenly burdened with new, unpleasant information. It doesn’t sound good.

“Is it?” Rosencrantz asks uncertainly, looking up at the planet again. “I was worried that it wasn’t.”

“Never mind that now,” the supervisor snaps, waving a hand dismissively. “As I was saying. The boy’s actions yesterday went too far. Now that we have kidnapped him, we can safely ensure that the mayor will cease humouring his son’s dangerous political opinions and put his full support back into the Secret Police. But no one can know that it was the Secret Police who kidnapped the mayor’s son. Everyone will know, but no one can _know_. Someone has to be to blame.”

“I understand,” Guildenstern says.

“Me too!” Rosencrantz adds hastily, although he does not. He often does not understand the things he is told to do, but Guildenstern usually does. That’s why they’re partnered together. Probably.

 

 

“I always worry about starting these things,” Rosencrantz says later, staring down at his incomplete crossword puzzle. “I think about what would happen to it if I something happened to me before I finish it. It would continue to exist in a sort of halfway state, don’t you think? Incomplete. What a terrible existence that would be, to have part of you missing.”

“You shouldn’t worry about it,” Guildenstern says. His voice still sounds heavy. “I know you will, though. Why do you have to worry about so many things?”

“I don’t know,” Rosencrantz answers honestly. “Don’t you?”

“I worry about you, worrying,” Guildenstern says. “I think that’s the only thing I worry about.”

“So you think that everything’s going to be alright?” Rosencrantz presses. “I mean, everything? Absolutely everything?”

Guildenstern takes his eyes off the road and looks at him with that familiar annoyed, fond, patient impatience, and Rosencrantz’s heart hurts to see it. “Yes,” Guildenstern says firmly.

“He doesn’t,” the man on the radio says.

“Yes, I do,” Guildenstern repeats.

“ _He does not_ ,” the man on the radio whispers.

 

 

It’s night now. They stop the car once they reach the scrublands, opening their doors and exiting the vehicle, but they keep the headlights and the radio on. The twin beams illuminate the scraggly plants growing among the sand and the pebbles, dust motes caught in the yellow light and swirled by the soft, warm wind. The radio murmurs to them quietly, still narrating their every action.

Without speaking, Rosencrantz opens the rear door and drags out the blindfolded man, who goes without resistance. When he pulls the man across the sand, the man stumbles, even though there’s nothing to stumble on. He stumbles like it’s a stage direction; like a man on the radio had said that it happened, so it did.

“Put him over there,” Guildenstern tells him, unnecessarily. They walk further into the sand wastes, until the wind drops and it’s suddenly colder, and then they stop. And Guildenstern pulls out a knife.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Rosencrantz tell him, brokenly. He can feel a tug of doubt, but he doesn’t look up. It’s too important now. “This is wrong. This isn’t how it happens.”

Guildenstern doesn’t answer him. He usually doesn’t, and that’s wrong too. He just steps closer to the blindfolded man and raises the knife. “The creator’s forgotten us, Guildenstern,” he says, and Guildenstern starts. When was the last time they called each other by name? “Our creator’s forgotten us, and now we’re _wrong_.”

"We're background characters," Guildenstern says, and Rosencrantz knows it's true; it doesn't matter if the story is about them, they're still background characters. "No one cares enough to fix us, remember?"

So let's fix ourselves,” Rosencrantz says, and looks up.

The dark planet is no longer distant. It looms over him, a mass of incomprehensively enormous size, the surface covered in thick, black forests and jagged mountains, swirled with deep, turbulent oceans. It’s so close now.

“So close,” Rosencrantz mutters. He can’t look away, but he swallows hard before holding out a hand to Guildenstern, and he knows that Guildenstern will take it without being told by the man on the radio that he will. “What’s going to happen now?” he asks, feeling himself start to cry.

“I don’t know,” Guildenstern replies. The planet is so close, and he knows he could touch it if he tried. His eyes slip shut.

He reaches up


End file.
